Pause
by Aleanbh
Summary: The evolution of Jane and Lisbon's relationship as seen through Samantha Barsocky (of Pete & Sam Fame!)'s eyes. Kind of tag to 7x09, Copper Bullet


AN: I've just really quickly scribbled together this in an hour, so apologies in advance if it's a tad scratchy! I hope to have a couple of episode tags up in the near future, S7 has been so satisfyingly good that I find there's not that much left to say! Hope you enjoy, please review if you do! Just the evolution of Jane and Lisbon's relationship through Samantha Barsocky's eyes. x

* * *

She pauses a moment the day she opens her trailer door and finds Patrick Jane standing beside her husband, little cop lady in tow. She stills on the spot and while a lesser person would consider her next move, she springs back to action without another thought and promptly strikes him on the cheek. For whatever else had happened in the mean time, he was still him, and she was still she. She retreats back inside after a few moments, sits on the edge of a chair and makes the most of the time before he will come to her; and he will. She's always been one of the few to understood him.

He comes to her as she knew he would. She wonders when she says Angela's name to him when last it was he heard it said aloud. He stays a while and then goes on his way. When he leaves she reflects in silence for a while.

"_You are doing okay, aren't you?" _She'd asked him. He'd done little to hide his dismissal of the question.

She hoped he was doing okay, despite the state trooper in tow.

* * *

She pauses a moment from the bittersweet jubilation of this reunion and watches Jane's cop lady friend drive away. Moments ago she'd placed Roddy's daughter back in his arms with a smile, and left them alone to enjoy this terrible, beautiful reality. Roddy had only had eyes for his daughter, his last link to Eileen, and as she had looked up to her husband to share this truth, she'd seen he was not watching Roddy, but Agent Lisbon driving away. She'd followed his gaze then and taken that moment to pause and think. She feels Pete break his stare and turn slightly to Roddy, arm on his shoulder behind her head. It is just then she pauses, regrets slightly her manner when conversing with the Agent both today and previously. Police were still police, but she was only doing her job. And turned out she was good at it. And Jane too. There was no denying they worked well together, Patrick Jane and that little brunette whippet of a thing.

She turns then and watches Roddy, forehead to forehead with his daughter. He had a tough road ahead, and again she thinks of Patrick Jane, who'd been left both without his wife and without his daughter. She wonders if it were too hard on him, if it would have been too hard to watch Roddy's reunion he could never have. She pauses. Maybe that's why he hadn't come. She wonders where he is, if he is imagining the moment unfolding from a distance, feeling alone,_ being_ alone. She wonders if perhaps that's why Agent Lisbon had seemed to be in such a rush away from them.

She hoped he was doing okay, Agent Lisbon alongside him.

* * *

She pauses when her hand brings the last envelope to the front of her pile of post. Slim, tall, curved handwriting, even and precise. She recognises the hand, but is unable to place it. The pull of a blade across the top reveals itself as that of Patrick Jane. Red John is dead and Jane is gone, but still present in his writing. His letter asks her to send an inner enclosed letter on to his Agent Lisbon. She obliges, remembering the woman's dedication to Caitlin's case and the unwarranted affection she's always carried for that poor Patrick Jane. He is overseas, gone from their reach. She considers how his life had been on hold, on pause while he'd hunted his family's killer. She wonders how he must be now that it is playing out once more, or as much as it can when he is isolated from all he knows; from them, from his work, from _her._

She hoped he was doing okay, across the miles from Lisbon.

* * *

She pauses, smile on her face just as the elevator doors close across Patrick's smiling face. He is happy. She'd been happy when Pete had come home to her, trying nonchalantly to hide the beaming grin that let her know he had some news to tell.

She stills and wonders how the hell it ever came to this.

It has been so good to see him again, the past firmly in the past and he looking to the future. She's been worried about him, worried about him since Angela died, but in her husband's arms, thoroughly satisfied at what she has seen these last few days, she knows she needn't worry anymore.

He is happy again, _finally_, after everything,_ happy_.

And she is more than happy to see him so.

She doesn't have to hope anymore, she _knows_. She knows he is okay, his love with him all the way.


End file.
